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McCaskill back in D.C. after breast cancer treatment

WASHINGTON—Sen. Claire McCaskill dove back into the legislative and political arena on Monday, returning to Washington after three weeks of intensive treatment for breast cancer in St. Louis.WASHINGTON—Sen.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Claire McCaskill dove back into the legislative and political arena Monday, returning to Washington after three weeks of intensive treatment for breast cancer in St. Louis.

McCaskill said she had a lumpectomy and then follow-up treatment at the Siteman Cancer Center, which is affiliated with Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. “I feel good, and my prognosis is great. I’m now anxious to get back to work,” McCaskill, D-Mo., told Missouri reporters in a 30-minute press call Monday afternoon.

She declined to provide further details of her treatment, but said her diagnosis was made after a routine mammogram.“This was not late stage,” she said. “The doctors are very positive that my prognosis is very good.”

McCaskill said the treatment had made her pause and reflect, taking a break from her usual pace. "I typically go 1,000 miles an hour and to slow down that much, for that many weeks in a row, was a really weird experience for me," she said.

But on Monday, she outlined an aggressive legislative agenda for the coming weeks, giving no indication that her recovery would crimp her schedule.

This week, she is pushing for a full Senate vote on a resolution to hold Backpage.com, a sex advertising website, in contempt of Congress. She and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, have said the company has refused to comply with a subpoena seeking documents about how it screens ads for warning signs of sex trafficking.

Next week, when the Senate is in recess, McCaskill said she plans to tour Missouri to promote college-affordability legislation.She supports a bill that would let students refinance their college loan debt at lower interest rates and would allow certain students with high-interest private loans to convert those to lower-cost government loans.

The Missouri Democrat lamented that she had been sidelined during a topsy-turvy moment in the presidential campaign.

"Probably for the first time in my adult life, I was not following every detail of politics over the last few weeks," she said. “It’s hard for me not to be in the fray."

She jumped right back in on Monday, criticizing GOP front runner Donald Trump and predicting that Missouri's Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday between Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would be close.

McCaskill said her three weeks in treatment gave her a chance to "refocus on the things that are really important in life ... A diagnosis like that has a tendency to get your attention that way."

She said hundreds of breast-cancer survivors from Missouri and around the country sent her messages of support."And I’m confident I’m going to count myself among their ranks," she said.